


Coffins

by akimikono



Series: Florence Fics [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mokuton, OCD, Obsession, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, based on a Florence + the Machine Song, mentions of Danzo, mentions of Kakashi - Freeform, mentions of death and war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akimikono/pseuds/akimikono
Summary: Yamato builds coffins. He doesn't know what else to build.





	Coffins

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "My Boy Builds Coffins" by Florence + the Machine.

The first time Yamato uses his Mokuton to build something useful, instead of as a weapon of war, he isn’t sure how he feels. A small voice at the back of his mind says he is wasting his time, using a tool as a toy. He is being careless, foolish, stupid. But another voice tells him that he is doing is okay. It is good to use something like his Mokuton to help others, rather than harm them. It is good to build, than to destroy.

Still, the doubt lingers and the item - a small wooden top - sits untouched in a drawer for quite some time.

The second time is almost the same. A lightness in his stomach as he creates something good and useful, followed by the tightness in his chest as words of disapproval crowd his mind. The second voice is quiet, but still it is there.

It doesn’t take long for Yamato to realize that the first voice - the one to berate him and insult him and remind him that the Mokuton is a weapon, that _he_ is a weapon - belongs to Danzo. But the second voice is harder to identify. He doesn’t know where such soft, kind words come from. It certainly isn’t himself, and he knows no one else who’d encourage him like this. Yet the voice is still there, letting him know it is okay to create for good.

Yamato learns to build all sorts of things. Chairs and tables, rocking horses and dolls, walls and buildings. He even builds a bench for Kakashi, one of the very few people who’ve been a near constant in his life. But it isn’t the only thing he builds.

Secretly, as the years pass and he watches comrades and dear ones fall in battle, Yamato builds coffins. The first one is very roughly hewn and lopsided - a result of being made during extreme emotion. Fear, anger, sorrow. The first coffin belongs to another member of ANBU and Yamato has never felt more ashamed of something he’s created.

He isn’t sure how to feel about making coffins. They are, in his opinion, halfway between good and bad. They keep bugs out and keep bodies in - they preserve and protect, which is good. But it is a reminder that whoever the coffin is for, is dead. Dead from battle, from disease, from themselves. One way or another, it is the same. Making coffins seems to be on the very edge of a thin line teetering between good and bad like Yamato himself. He still wonders if he is good, or if he is bad. It is far too easy for people in power to twist their stories and make him believe he’s doing good, when he’s not. So he sticks to what he does know, which is that he can create with wood and he’s a ninja of the Leaf Village.

Yamato makes a lot of coffins. Large ones and small ones - since war and death do not care about age or status. He builds coffins for ANBU, for teachers, for genin, even a few civilians. The more he makes, the better he gets. He hates the fact that he is so good at making things like coffins. What he hates even more is that he knows one day he’ll have to make the coffin he dreads most.

One day he makes a plain coffin with splintered edges and dull wood, just large enough to fit the body - his body. He knows one day he’ll need one and if _he_ can make it _now_ , it saves trouble for somebody else later. Even when it’s for himself, he only thinks of other people and how he can make sure he isn’t inconveniencing anyone. He hates the idea of being bother even after death.

He sets it away in his apartment to forget about it, but he can never forget about it. Death is on his mind constantly. Death surrounds him on every mission. He wonders if somebody will find it after he dies and bury him in it - or if it’ll be forgotten, only to be unearthed weeks or months later when the landlord decides to rent out his empty apartment to somebody else. He wants to leave the wooden box alone, but he can’t help but wipe it down every now and again. He doesn’t want it collecting dust - doesn’t want to get too comfortable with the fact that his daily reminder of death is going untouched. Yes, he’s lived another day - but that just means he’s closer to using the coffin.

* * *

 Yamato’s habit becomes an obsession and soon he is building coffins for everyone he knows, everyone he has ever interacted with. Some are haphazard, created in the dead of night as anxiety and guilt overtake him and he can’t stop thinking, _“One day they’ll need this, one day they’ll need this_ ,” but he hopes and prays that that day isn’t soon. Sometimes he gets his wish - and the coffins go unused for a long time. Sometimes he isn’t too lucky, and only a short time later is the wooden box loaded up and buried deep under the cold earth. There are weeks when he cannot sleep because someone’s died _before_ he’s made their coffin. He feels like he’s failed - he wasn’t ready for them. There’s far too many of them, far too many deaths and far too many coffins to be built.

Some of the coffins he builds are nicer, created under a strange sense of calmness. They have round corners and blended seams and small details that make them unique to their future resident. He doesn’t know how to present them to the people he’s built them for. It is too strange to admit to them he’s thought of their death and, just in case, he’s prepared their eternal resting place out of obsession.

Out of the hundreds of coffins he’s built, there is one that stands out as his treasured work - a morbid favorite that he is both proud of and terrified of. It is the one he was most afraid to create. It is made of smooth, polished wood that reflects like a mirror. It is cold to the touch, but has the softest edges and nearly invisible seams. The inside is just as smooth and smells faintly of the great forests surrounding the village; he’s made it a bit larger than it needs to be. He doesn’t want the person to feel crowded, even in the afterlife. He knows they’ve always felt like they’ve been suffocated - by expectation, by ridicule, by rumor, by life itself. Perhaps, if only in death, he could give them the comfort of having enough space to breathe.

Yamato hides this coffin in his apartment beside his. He is afraid of when this one will be called up and used. He is afraid it’ll be before he gets to use his. He is afraid it’ll be long after he’s buried himself. The coffins go together - one rough hewn and splintering, one glossy and refined. He can find no time to be at peace as the days and months and years drag on and the coffins go unused. He knows one day - one day - one day. He dreams maybe not ever; but he hopes maybe they’ll go the same day. The coffins can’t be separated - he’s decided it now - they have to be buried together.

One day Yamato realizes he hasn’t built anything other than coffins - no toys, no benches, no buildings or walls. Just the dark wooden boxes that lie buried underneath the grass in the village cemetery. He thinks it’s a shame he doesn’t get to see the more lovely ones; and he can’t tell if that’s from the perspective of a craftsman, or something darker. But that same day he realizes he hasn’t heard Danzo’s criticizing voice telling him what he’s doing is wrong or foolish or selfish. In fact, Yamato can’t see what Danzo would complain about - he may not be using his Mokuton for a weapon anymore, but he’s still building things that remind him daily of the fleeting lives of those around him, the causalities of war, of death and destruction and all things evil.

And one day, as he’s wiping down the glossy surface of the second coffin shoved into his tiny apartment, he realizes he knows that second voice. The one that encourages him and lets him know that what he is doing is okay; that he can use his powers to create for good. It is a voice he’s heard so many times over the years; a voice that hangs on the air and is ingrained into every mental conversation he replays.

It is Kakashi’s voice.

And Yamato hasn’t realized until now, hasn’t realize this voice that has been taking care of him all these years is the same voice that has given him commands, guided him through missions, talked to him until the early hours as he - as they both - recovered from nightmares. He doesn’t know how he missed it, how he couldn’t tell it was his dear friend, especially since the voice was loudest when he was polishing his treasured piece - his magnum opus - the most elegant coffin - Kakashi’s coffin.

 


End file.
